Highway Plans

November 16, 2002 - Posted by André Restivo- 0 Comments

I finally got my hands on the plans for the new highway node near
my house (i find it incredible how these were not available on the
internet). For any curious soul living near me here they are: href="/images/francos.png">

From .



Linux vs Windows

November 16, 2002 - Posted by André Restivo- 0 Comments

I found this comment on a Slashdot discussion about why Linux
adepts keep using Windows. I think it explains the difference
between Microsoft and Linux views on what an OS should be.

Microsoft

  • Interface - The human interface is the most
    important aspect of any program. Users will not tolerate a broken
    interface, and if the interface is well-refined, the user will
    naturally assume that the program itself is more refined. The
    interface should be fast, intuitive, and responsive, even at the
    expense of overall speed and stability. You can almost always give
    the illusion of stability and performance by improving your
    UI.
  • Hardware Support - The system MUST work with the
    user’s computer, and the user’s acessory MUST work with
    windows. Stability can be sacrificed to allow for more
    hardware.
  • Features - Users want features. More features means a
    better product. Features take predence over speed, stability, and
    security.
  • Stability - The system shouldn’t crash too often.
    However, the user will tolerate the occasional failure if it means
    she can get the features she wants.
  • Security - The system shouldn’t be overly insecure.
    Serious security issues can be dealt with in the future on an
    item-by-item basis, and most problems can be blamed on the
    technology rather than the software (case in point: Outlook
    scripting worms are called “email viruses”).
  • Speed - href="http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/Moores_Law.html">Moore’s
    Law. [webopedia.com] ‘Nuff said.

Linux

  • Note that Linux is worked on by a much
    more diverse group of developers. Each has his own goals. This list
    represents the more common goals of the core OS develpers.
  • Stability - Premeditated instability will not be
    tolerated. Linus will not accept a patch that he doesn’t trust, and
    features known to decrease stability are almost never allowed
    outside of development releases of pretty much any package.
  • Security - Linux developers absolutely hate the idea of
    an insecure computer. Security is almost never sacrificed for
    anything else.
  • Speed - Speed is sexy. Many OSS developers get a rise
    out of making stuff run faster.
  • Features - Features are added when someone who needs it
    knows how to build it. Features are still very important, but
    shouldn’t be allowed to displace things like stability and
    security.
  • Hardware Support - The system should work with all the
    hardware possible, but adding hardware support most often involves
    reverse-engineering and a lot of tweaking. It’s slow, difficult,
    and most developers would rather just “make the common hardware
    work, and the hardware that works common    .”
  • Interface - Lets face it, most Linux programmers
    absolutely suck at interface design. An interface should be good
    enough to make it work. The real beauty of a program is in what it
    does, not what it looks like.

From href="http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=44997">ask.slashdot.org.